This invention relates to a system, apparatus and method for categorising vegetation.
Utility conductors such as power cables and telecommunication cables are required to span large distances in order to provide power and/or communications across a wide area. An efficient way of doing this whilst maintaining access to the conductor is to suspend the conductor overhead between poles (or pylons). However, this creates a problem when traversing areas of vegetation as this may encroach onto the conductor, either by falling onto, or by growing around the conductor and/or poles.
Typically, a ‘network operator’ is responsible for any outages resulting from such damage; these entities often employ contractors to monitor a particular stretch of conductor and pruning or removal of vegetation as necessary. Such a process is very labour intensive and potential problems can be easily missed. Furthermore, frequent inspections are necessary so as to account for vegetation growth or storm damage. Similar problems exist in other fields such as railways, waterways, roads, or other infrastructure where reducing the risk vegetation impact/incursion is desired.
More recently, the inspection process has been carried out by aircraft using aerial photographs (as in WO03094109 A2, for timber stock auditing) or LiDAR (Light-Radar, or sometimes referred to as ‘Light Detection And Ranging’) (as in US 2012/0169498 A1, for tree-health assessment). Again, this process can easily miss potential problems, and contractors are still required to determine how to remedy any identified problems.
The problem of vegetation encroaching onto conductors is exacerbated by increased power usage which heats the conductors and makes them expand and sag. Global warming has also had an impact on this problem as higher ambient temperatures further contribute to such expansion; global warming also extends and accelerates the growing season of the surrounding vegetation.
There is thus a need to solve or reduce at least some of the aforementioned problems.